Face the PerilSaving the yankees, one black sock at a time2016-11-10T21:56:04Zhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/feed/atom/WordPresschristianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=32102016-11-10T21:56:04Z2016-11-10T16:01:04ZRead More]]>Like an awful lot of people, I was shocked at the results from the election. I didn’t see whatever it was that made so many people embrace Trump.

And that’s on me. I guess our social media outlets, like our news sources, do tend to filter dissenting opinions. I should find a conservative outlet to get a sense of what people with that worldview are feeling. (But not Breitbart. There has to be one written by sober people.)

The wonderful Amanda Marcotte says it was straight-up sexism and misogyny. I don’t have Amanda’s sources or insight. I agree that sexism probably played a substantial role, maybe even a crucial one.

I have to believe there was more to it.

I want to think his supporters were really supporting the idea of hitting a hard reset on the government. I want to think they felt left out and forgotten, and were willing to do anything to burn it down and try again.

But I’m nervous.

Xenophobia and sexism

I’m nervous about the groups of people he has already identified as a threat to America. As a straight, white, American-born male, I won’t experience the rheumy glare of Trump’s disapproval. Indeed, he would likely be confused by my disdain.

His invective towards Hispanic and Muslim people is well documented. His disrespect and habitual abuse of women is part of his brand. In selecting Mike Pence as a running mate, he sends a rare unambiguous message: “I do not care what happens to LGBQT people.”

His supporters may say all that was just campaign talk to try to get votes. That’s a horrifying thought, especially when those supporters love him for “telling it like it is.”

Maybe there’s a chance people like Ivanka can temper that in him. I doubt those groups will find an ally in Trump, but maybe they won’t find an active enemy. Maybe?

Probably not. I’m worried for my friends and loved ones and total strangers among those re-marginalized groups. I can’t walk in their shoes, and I don’t know how to walk beside them in a meaningful way. I’m encouraged that younger people did not vote for this — in fact, most of us didn’t vote for this, but the electoral college distorted the margins.

So I’m scared.

Climate change

I’m scared this message to the “political elites” comes at too high a price.

We have elected a man who has called man-made climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. (I wonder how our relationship with China is gonna be? I got $5 on “not great.”)

We have given this denier a Congress that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry. I haven’t looked at any numbers, but I don’t believe Trump’s supporters as a group see anthropogenic global warming as a real thing.

That could not happen at a worse time. Every month sets a new record for being the warmest of that month on record, and the new record lasts exactly 12 months. We are seeing the effects all around us, and Trump will work with Congress to destroy the EPA.

There will not be a single governmental dime spent on green energy research. There will be no tax incentives on clean-burning innovations. There will be massive subsidies to the oil industry, fracking for everyone, and a brand new Keystone XL pipeline. Even if both houses of Congress go blue in 2018 and Trump loses his reelection in 2020, the damage done will be incalcuable, and will not be reversed for centuries at best. It’s a lot to pay to send a message to the media.

Other, more sensible countries will keep at it. China and Europe will continue fighting global warming. Maybe that will slow the chaos.

But I’m frightened.

Death and the Affordable Care Act

I’m frightened about health care in this country.

If you know me, you probably know I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in early 2009. It was a highly treatable variety, so in that I was lucky.

At the time, I was doing contract work. This was at the height of the recession, and full-time jobs with benefits were hard to come by. Many contract jobs don’t include membership in a group medical plan, so I looked into getting an individual plan for awhile.

Very enlightening. Before the Affordable Care Act, if you had cancer, none of the health insurance companies would even talk to you for 10 years after you had the cancer treated. TEN YEARS. Those crucial ten years during which cancer is most likely to return, and during which you need frequent medical tests to detect any recurrence early.

I’m about 7.5 years removed my cancer treatment, and despite a couple of scares, there hasn’t been a recurrence. So in that I was also lucky. I managed to get work with contract agencies that offered medical coverage, and now I have a full time job with coverage through my employer. Lucky again.

But I’m still frightened.

No, I am fucking terrified. Trump and his Congressional lickspittles don’t have anything with which to replace the ACA. They are going to repeal it first, then see what they need to do. Does anyone think they will do anything other than pass control back to the health insurance companies, and we’ll be right back where we were before the ACA?

I will be one economic downturn or one corporate acquisition away from being unemployed. Humana and the rest will go back to “sorry, we aren’t obligated to talk to you, good luck, ha ha.”

I’m not alone. There are millions of people with some variety of soon-to-be-not-covered pre-existing medical conditions. We will have no recourse.

And the Trump supporters don’t care. The lives and the health of millions of people just like me are less important than “sending a message” about governmental regulations.

I am insulted. I am horrified. I am on the verge of panic.

Trumpers tell me some variety of “Don’t worry. It will be okay. Trump will Make America Great Again.”

Fuck. Off.

I am trying to understand you. I promise, I am. But all I am understanding is that you don’t give a shit about the consequences of your actions. “I hate Obamacare” means “The people who get health insurance now do not deserve it if it costs me an extra nickle.” I am running out of reasons to understand people who would prefer their pizza delivery guy die from a treatable disease instead of paying eight cents more for a pizza.

Trump supporters may be willing to throw away all our lives because they don’t like being regulated. I will be curious how that anarchistic fervor holds up when the ones who can’t get their chemo is themselves. I don’t wish it on anyone — cancer is goddamn scary — but it’s going to eventually happen to some of that mercurial con man’s followers.

This isn’t what I intended to write when I started. I meant to work through what Trump’s voters had been feeling, hoping that would lead me to understanding the optimism they are experiencing now. Unfortunately, all this has done has highlighted what we’re throwing into the pyre — a pyre lit by an ignorant, intolerant bully willing to pander to our basest fears in the name of making himself influential and important.

It’s been less than 48 hours, and Trump’s supporters are still taking their victory lap. I hope when they’re done, they will have some insights to alleviate some of this, because I swear I can’t see an upside myself.

It looks like it’s some kind of seed, but it seems kind of ephemeral to be coming out of such large trees (if it is coming from the trees). Shammy will eat it, but I don’t know if that means anything because she also eats cigarette butts.

Which reminds me — stop dropping your cigarette butts, you yankee barbarians! You are never more than a few steps away from a proper disposal receptacle. Including that pickup with the Trump stickers. (How did that guy get here?) I like my dog like she is — unfiltered.

I’m looking forward to seeing other weird stuff as the seasons change — yesterday it was in the 80s and people were amazed! It’s only like three days before summer begins! — but I am curious about what I’m breathing.

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=31972016-06-08T19:40:04Z2016-06-08T19:40:04ZCrap, I’m out of maple.

Anyone know the penalty? I think it’s a misdemeanor, at least on the first offense.

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=31772016-06-08T10:58:29Z2016-06-08T10:58:03ZRead More]]>I knew there would be animals up here that don’t exist in Georgia outside of zoos. New England has some large fauna that can truly damage your car if you wrap around one. All part of the new adventure, right?

Of course I mean hippies. This is their natural habitat, and it’s reflected in the large number of organic grocery stores and shops that sell tea tree oil.

The hippies are unusually aggressive this year, so be careful! I expect they will gradually return to their normal sessile state now that the California primary is over, but I’m not a zoologist.

Watch for hippie warnings

It’s not just hippies either! There are plenty of other hazardous unemployed mammals here.

“Hey Rocky! Watch me trample a Canadian tourist into a puddle! Nothin’ up my sleeve…”

The moose are large and in charge. They are part of the deer family, but they are not Bambi. They are several baseball bats held together by mass and anger. They are such interesting creatures that many unaware visitors can’t resist a selfie. Lots of coroners have commented about how surprised those visitors look.

Do NOT confuse moose with hippies. Unlike hippies, moose are powerful, scary, impressive, and you need a license to hunt them. Moose will also seriously ruin your day if your car gets into an inertia fight with them.

(Okay, I’ll leave the hippies alone. Honestly, I like them. My own politics more closely align with Vermonters than with Georgians, and I like having a wide variety of coffee shop. I only tease hippies because I am jealous of their hacky sack skills.)

I haven’t seen a moose in person yet, but it’s not hard to see their influence. This is a common road sign when you get out of the Burlington city limits.

We are not a subtle people

A few weeks ago, I drove from Burlington to Bar Harbor, Maine — a lovely town about six hours away along roads that wind scenically through forests and mountains. I recommend the trip unless you need to find a bathroom.

But as you travel east from here, you notice something about the moose signs. You start out with simple family-oriented signs like the one above, but once you get to New Hampshire, things get dire.

New Hampshire doesn’t just ramp up the moose carnage, either. That place is an abattoir.

Ok, this one isn’t about moose, but seriously — if you must go into New Hampshire, use the buddy system

If you make it to the far side of New Hampshire, you are positive you are going to t-bone a moose, which will only make it angry. By the time I got to Augusta, Maine, I wasn’t worried as much about hitting a moose as I was about getting jumped at a gas station and them beating me up, cutting my brake lines, and canceling my insurance. These things are sinister.

The warnings tapered off close to the coast. I don’t know if the moose intimidated the local highway people into leaving us unawares or they made some sort of armed truce with the lobsters or what. Maybe they saw that coastal Mainers were willing to turn lobster into ice cream and decided those people were crazy.

You think I am joking but I am not

I made it back from Maine without having seen a moose. Maybe the bicycles are tastier this time of year, I don’t know. Count my blessings. So far, the weirdest animals Shammy and I have encountered were a beaver and a Prius with a Trump sticker on the back.

But my day is coming. It comes for us all in the end. Ask not for whom the moose honks.

Next: “Daddy, where do F-16s come from?” “Why, they come from next to Christian’s apartment, son!”

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=31742016-06-06T21:44:54Z2016-06-06T21:44:54ZHow are things in Georgia?

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=31702016-06-06T12:33:41Z2016-06-06T12:27:23ZRead More]]>One thing about Vermont is that there are places where there is no wifi signal. I don’t mean “three bars or fewer,” I mean ZERO. It’s hard to believe in the 21st century, but there it is.

The problem is I’m close to Canada. I’m closer to Montreal than I am to other parts of Vermont. I don’t know how Canadians connect to the net, but I assume there’s a hand crank involved.

Anyhow, if I’m going to be out there in these desolate ghost towns like Montpelier, I’ll need to post information and warnings without waiting for the afternoon zeppelin. So I’m posting this via email from my phone. I’m curious about the formatting.

Speaking of which, let’s see what it does with photos. I’ll need photographic evidence of my wild but true claims.

Stay tuned! Moose news tomorrow!

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=31642016-06-05T16:23:12Z2016-06-05T13:59:44ZRead More]]>Most of you have realized by now I moved from Atlanta, Georgia, to Burlington, Vermont. When I tell people that, the most common question I get is “Who the hell are you? Do you Feel the Bern?”

But occasionally people ask me why I did that. It’s because Vermont doesn’t have an extradition agreement with Georgia.

I’ve been here for about 3.5 months now. I arrived at the end of an unusually mild winter, so I still have the Real Snow to look forward to. But I have learned a lot about this place. Mostly I love it, but these people do need help. You can’t find self-rising corn meal, for example, and a bag of pecans means you don’t want to bother with paying rent. And you will think I am lying when I tell you about what passes for fashion.

This is just a taste

And while I align more with Vermonters in general than with people in Alabama and Georgia, I am living in fear of the day when they realize Bernie Sanders will not be our next president. That may happen as soon as next week, but I expect it won’t be until the midterms in 2018.

Plus, football season is coming. When I try to explain football to these people, they ask me what the latest hockey score was. (Pro Tip: It was always 1-0 with a contested penalty shot and an epic fight.)

So I’m going to stop using this blog as an excuse to brag about my travels or to announce that my dog has died (Shammy is fine!), I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned living here and how I’m going to fix it.

To get us started, here’s something I wrote when I first got here. Stay tuned!

I’m working on a conversion table from Vermont weather to Southern reactions. I hope this can help others.

TEMPERATURE:

32-40 DEGREES F

Vermont: I guess I should wear something with sleevesGeorgia: We could use some global warming! HAW HAW HAW! Seriously, pick up milk and eggs immediately.

20-32 DEGREES F

Vermont: *sighs and lowers the wind screen on the Vespa helmet*Georgia: I have deployed all the space heaters. Have they closed the schools yet?

BELOW 20 DEGREES F

Vermont: FINALLY I get to show off my cute new sweater!Georgia: *accidentally smothered to death under 8 feet of down comforters*

SNOW:

1-3 INCHES

3-5 INCHES

Vermont: Humid today.Georgia: I need snowshoes. Do we have any old cutting boards?

5-10 INCHES

Vermont: Nice. I haven’t gone skiing in almost two weeks, not counting that ski trip last weekend.Georgia: *Abandons car on the interstate and lives at a Waffle House for three days. Presumed dead.*

10+ INCHES

Vermont: I guess I need some kind of hatGeorgia: The Elder Gods are rising and they are angry. We’re gonna need some virgins.

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=31372015-08-24T17:21:46Z2015-08-24T14:38:15ZRead More]]>I just finished a short vacation in Dover, New Hampshire.

That’s not a sentence you read often. But that’s where my friend Kathy lives, so Dover it is!

If you’re like everyone else not living within 10 miles of Dover, you have likely never heard of the place. It has an interesting history: it was founded in 1793 by Bostonians who were being persecuted for their beliefs — particularly, their belief that the Red Sox are “wicked retahted.” They fled Boston intending to head south to Dover, Delaware, but they held the map upside down. To this day, their descendants have no idea where they’re going.

Anyway, they confidently walked towards Delaware until they saw a sign reading “Welcome to Maine.” They unanimously decided it was close enough, and Dover NH was born within spitting distance of the Maine state line (maybe two miles — Colonial Bostonians were were potent spitters).

While visiting Kathy is more than enough reason to go to a small NH town, there was another reason: I’m preparing to GTFO out Atlanta. That means a I need to move somewhere else (stop me if this is going too fast). At the moment, I have more friends in New England than anywhere else. Could New England welcome a humble Southerner eager to discover seasons other than “pollen” and “recruiting”? It was time to find out. I think I still owe Kathy gas money.

FRIDAY: Dover to Kennebunkport

I flew into Boston late Thursday and spent the evening catching up with Kathy and her affable golden retriever Jake the Indestructible. By that, I mean I talked to Kathy periodically between throwing tennis balls for Jake. I believe after all the fetching, Jake was in favor of me moving to the area.

On Friday, another friend, Liz, came up from Boston to to help us decimate the lobster (sorry, lobstah) population. I wasn’t exactly nervous about two of my best friends meeting. It’s just that they each have different piles of dirt on me. I could tell if I was out of earshot for more than 30 seconds, I’d return to find them both pointing at me and laughing.

Those fears were unfounded — I didn’t need to step out of earshot at all. (I didn’t tell them that at the time, so no one told me to stop being a “fuhkin’ pussah.”)

Some observations on that first day:

Kathy works in a town called Kittery, Maine, which is basically a large outlet mall with a road paved through the middle. This is a powerful magnet for tourists when it’s raining too hard to hit the beach. Which it was while we were there. People from Vermont can’t merge worth a crap, by the way.

I had my first lobstah roll. It’s a hot dog bun with a light coating of mayo, stuffed with lobstah meat. It’s as good as it sounds except 10 times better. The best side dish for a lobstah roll is another lobstah roll.

Live lobstah is $5.29 a pound. I believe that’s cheaper than pork. Hell, I think it’s cheaper than green peppers. You can be a vegetarian in Maine, but it’ll be more expensive.

Maine is gorgeous.

The closer you get to Kennebunkport, the more businesses have a photo with George H. W. Bush posing with the business owner. He isn’t so mobile any more, but during the Clinton years, he obviously spent time running into random stores and smiling until someone grabbed a camera.

The key to boiling lobstah is to get a bucket and fill it with sea water. But be damn sure you get a lid for that bucket — a lesson I learned to my cost.

We had a plan. It involved reducing the total lobstah population by eight. Kathy has a friend in Atlanta named Heather who is terribly allergic to shellfish, so we were cutting back on the chances of her encountering something that will harm her. (You’re welcome, Heather!)

We had a bucket. We were at Nubble Lighthouse, famous for being quite near the ocean. It was foolproof.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook probably noticed that I went off the grid about this time. I was like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he thinks evil government agencies are hunting him.

When we stopped to get lobstah, I sat in the car with the water bucket between my legs. My iPhone was sitting on my lap. I turned to take the lobstah from Kathy when I heard the two sounds no smartphone owner wants to hear:

“bloop”

Liz laughing her ass off in the back seat

What I said before about putting a lid on your bucket? I fuhkin’ MEANT IT. (Hey, have you noticed I haven’t posted any pictures? No reason.)

I read that you can sometimes fix a wet phone by soaking it in rice. It kind of worked but not really.

BONUS QUESTION: How do you get a grain of rice out of an iPhone charge port? Leave your answer in the comments. Please hurry. The winner gets a lifetime of of karma and a great deal on a slightly used non-buoyant iPhone. No calls, please.

Dinner was as good as you might expect. It was actually better than I expected. There wasn’t any gravy or cornbread in sight, but this Southerner still got it down and looked around for more.

Liz left for Boston, and Kathy and I prepped for:

SATURDAY: L.L. Bean to Portland

You know what Mainers love? Central heating. But also dogs. Dogs were welcome in almost every store and restaurant we saw. There was a dog carnival at the massive L. L. Bean compound in Freeport. Dogs everywhere. Dog parades, dog competitions, dozens of tents with vendors selling dog products. It was cool if you like dogs. If you don’t like dogs, this is the wrong state for you. Go back to Indiana, you freak.

The L.L. Bean compound is impressive. It’s a good place to ride out a zombie apocalypse. Especially if you know how to kill zombies with kayak paddles and fleece-lined jackets.

From there, we headed to Portland, Maine’s largest city. (Population: 66,000 — or roughly the population of any three-mile stretch of I-85 South in Atlanta during morning rush). Kathy had signed us up for a lobstah-based walking foodie tour of the city.

You might think a lobstah tour of Portland is similar to a water tour of the Atlantic Ocean. With some justification. But it was really a tour of some of the best places to eat along the waterfront. It was fun and interesting and we got samples everywhere. You won’t get that with a walking tour of even the finest Waffle Houses and Chick-Fil-As anywhere in Georgia.

We were then on our own to wander around and HEY, AN AT&T STORE! With employees who don’t ask a lot of stupid questions! My replacement phone is on its way.

We did a driving tour of seven of the 60 or so lighthouses still dotting the Maine shoreline. Thanks to GPS technology, these charming structures have no practical uses now, but they’re still really cool. Part of me wishes they still served the same purpose, but the more rational part of me realizes it’s good to have more accurate positioning for our ships. Have you noticed we haven’t had any more songs like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in a long time? And lines like “as big freighters go, it was bigger than most”? For that alone, we owe GPS technology our thanks. And also it saves lives. And we are free to mock the captain of the Costa Concordia is a way that we don’t mock the captain of the Titanic, although they were both idiots.

Um. My point is the lighthouses were neat. Go look.

At this point it had actually been more than 2 hours since we’d eaten any lobstah, so back to Portland! Try the Lobstah Mac’n’Cheese!

Two great days in a row. I was sad to be leaving the next day.

SUNDAY: Goodbye, My Friends to Gidda Fuhk Outta Heah, Ya Mook

I didn’t sleep well Saturday night. You know when your brain is churning on something you secretly suspect is dumb but you might as well let it ride and see if it reaches the same conclusion? I had a lot of that.

Was this the right place for me? Would I really be happy here on the days when my favorite people weren’t driving me around? If I did move to New England, would I be better off inserting myself into the lives of my friends and their habits and groups and and all (I know me, and I know I’d be more inclined to join in with the people I already love, even if it short-circuited their own lives, since they’re too nice to tell me to go away) (except for Amanda, who would just punch me)? Should I go someplace completely new, armed only with Shammy and inadequate winter clothing, and start from scratch?

It was thoughts like these that kept me up and drove me to walk around Dover by myself for a long time Sunday morning. Other thoughts included “where the hell am I?” and “how on Earth can I get lost in a town this small?” and “shit, did I just jaywalk in front of a cop?”

No actual conclusions. I reached a kind of truce with my brain until we figure out what’s happening jobwise. I need to become a heavy drinker for times like this.

I eventually got over myself and found Kathy’s apartment, just in time for brunch with a local friend of hers and to pick up a lid for her water bucket. Because Kathy’s grandmother is coming to visit soon and GOD FORBID something splash on HER legs or eat her iPhone!

Our last adventure came in the form of the Museum of Science in Boston, where we met up again with Liz, who had Bob in tow. The Museum is really geared for children, but there was plenty of neat stuff for us jaded adults who think science is a big ol’ fib.

The highlight was probably the Pixar Studios exhibit. Thankfully, none of it was narrated by that volcano in the Lava short from Inside Out. You don’t want to be at a science museum that teaches kids you can overcome plate tectonics with a ukelele and loneliness.

It was all great. A nice place to nerd out alone or with nerd friends. I’d have happily stayed longer, but I had to get back to the airport in time for my flight delays.

Come see Maine, y’all. If I wind up there in the next four months or so, I’ll show you around the lobstah!

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=31122015-08-03T11:37:12Z2015-08-03T11:37:34ZRead More]]>I barely remember anything the rest of the day after Mann Gulch. I think I took a shower while holding myself up with both arms. I know I handed my wallet to the woman at the front desk and told her to take whatever was needed to get me several Aleves. And I have the bill from taking my numerous Charley horses out to eat. Beyond that, no idea. I apologize if I called any of you whimpering about my hip flexors.

Day four was more driving around in Montana. My plan was to go to Missoula and then gradually wind my way into position to hit Yellowstone the next day. Unless my Charley horses kicked in again and I launched myself into a ravine like I was a Dukes of Hazzard outtake.

Missoula

Missoula was where I had to go to put a cap on the whole obsessive Mann Gulch thing. Like, you know how I mentioned on Day Three that those smokejumpers flew there in a DC-3? Did you wonder “what is wrong with this person that he has this stuff in his head”? A fair question. How did I know they used a DC-3?

Because here it is!

If you think the owners did not give me a detailed story about how they got it, you do not understand Monantans.

And here’s more of it!

Somewhere in here 66 years ago, a smokejumper barfed so hard it saved his life.

And here’s some kind of messed-up sled invented by a masochist that was afraid of dog teams.

The windshield detaches and can be replaced with a coffin lid.

And here’s a jaunty cutout next to the DC-3 that I don’t fully understand.

I got no idea. If you’re stuck between a death plane and a paranoid beekeeper, you just gotta smile!

All this is waiting for YOU at the Museum of Mountain Flying. Located right next to the Missoula International Airport and smokejumper base. The museum is a little hard to find because you have to cut through the Avis car rental lot and look for a hanger next to a bunch of other hangers.

Umm. I’m sure there’s lots else to see and do in Missoula. I pretty much went for the plane and stayed for the stupid handmade sled.

Testy Festy!

But if I HADN’T gone, I would not have learned about the Testicle Festival happening right then in nearby Clinton, Montana. You are going to think I made this festival up, but I am not. And I can prove it, but do not click that link.

There are two things that page wants you to know:

The Testy Festy is neither about balls or breasts, it’s about having a good time.

I truly apologize for not having any pictures. Or maybe not. I was not going to Testy Fest. I celebrate in a more traditional manner — a bowl of tater tots and bootlegs of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century I got from eBay. The bootlegs, not the tater tots. Look, stop oppressing me.

The festival is really about eating animal testicles, the organizers claim. (That does not make me regret skipping it.) Turkey and cow appear to be among the more popular participants. There are cooking contests and everything. President Obama and Sully Sullenberger have both won awards for being ballsy.

That explains why the wet t-shirt contest is the most popular event. I guess. I think they emasculated a bunch of turkeys as an excuse to have a three-day mosh pit.

Either way, after Clinton, you sort of want to wash your hands. I think that was first said by Monica LewinsNO! No, I will not make that joke.

In any case, the next place to stop is Beavertail Hill State Park. No, thank you.

Eventually I found a place that would let me dip my hands in kerosene and eat a Twix to absolve my sins.

Welcome to Belgrade!

My last stop was a tiny town called Belgrade, MT, next to a road that leads directly to Yellowstone. I was getting SO TIRED of all these friendly people, I was hoping for someone to just come at me like they had a kidney stone and a caffeine headache. No such luck. Lots of “oooh, what’s Atlanta like?” and “did you get to see [insert amazing sounding thing I’d never heard about]?”

The same friendly crap from a UPS store nearby. Is the snark gland the first thing to go when you have frostbite?

It turns out that Belgrade is very close to Bozeman, where poor Amanda Kimmel missed her chance on Day Two.

It was early enough and sunny. There was time to save her! But I think you lose any credit for serendipity when you are actually stalking someone. Plus, according to some of the Survivor forums, it was literally the day before her wedding. Also my legs were still hurting. Guess it wasn’t meant to be. (Congrats on the wedding, Amanda! May your back-door hoses be always the right diameter.)

Oh well. Another evening surrounded by nice people trying to make me feel at home. FINE. At least tomorrow I’ll be surrounded by tourists from normal, standoffish places! Do your worst, Yellowstone!

]]>0christianhttp://www.facetheperil.com/wisdom/?p=30912015-07-31T13:14:12Z2015-07-31T12:00:50ZRead More]]>I don’t think I can be funny while talking about Mann Gulch. To those of you who just said “or anything else for that matter” — hahahahahaha no refunds.

Truly, I would feel like a jerk if I even tried. Like getting a case of the giggles during the Changing of the Guard at Arlington Cemetery.

I think few of you know anything about Mann Gulch or why I’ve been going on about it. Not to mention why I bothered to make this pilgrimage. For whatever reason, it’s not stayed in the national consciousness like other tragedies such as Pearl Harbor or Titanic or Amazon’s Prime Day Sale. The least I can do is tell you the story while telling about my own experiences there. Maybe that will help some of you learn why I find Mann Gulch and its history so powerful.

And then, yes, I’ll shut up about it. Maybe.

In 1940, the U.S. government formed the Smokejumpers. These were young men, mostly in their late teens or twenties, who were trained to jump out of airplanes to fight wilderness fires inaccessible any other way. The ranks swelled somewhat as WWII ended and more paratroopers came back and repurposed their skills. Before long, the smokejumpers were an elite firefighting group.

As soon as I’d made plans to go into Mann Gulch — alone, no less — I was intimidated by it. I’m not exactly the world’s most experienced outdoorsman, and if it wasn’t a rugged, desolate place, it would have a different history and I probably would never have heard of it. Going in eight days before the 66th anniversary gave me visions of similar conditions. I was half convinced I’d be so busy watching for smoke that I wouldn’t notice myself treading on a rattlesnake.

On August 5, 1949, central Montana was in an extended dry, hot spell. Temperatures in Helena were in the 90s and shot past 100 in the mountains. Thunderstorms would roll in, but any rain they dropped evaporated before it hit the ground. They weren’t as lucky with the lightning.

But it was in the low 50s and cloudy when I drove out to the Gates of the Mountains Marina. The storm I’d encountered in Billings the night before had dumped about an inch of rain in the Gulch and kept the temperature down. Tim, the owner of the marina, assured me it was the perfect day for hiking, even though the sun was coming out. The rattlesnakes would be calm, you see. And I could pet the official marina dog until the boat was ready.

Never caught her name, but she made sure you scratched her ears

In the middle of the day on August 5th, lighting struck high on the south ridge near the mouth of Mann Gulch — a funnel-shaped valley along the Missouri River 20 miles upstream from Helena. A forest ranger named Jim Harrison in nearby Meriwether Canyon saw the smoke and called it in to the Smokejumper base in Missoula, then went to fight it as best he could.

This is Christopher after dumping me at the mouth of Mann Gulch. I was still worried he was the last human I’d ever see.

Christopher nooooooo!

The smokejumper base put one of their teams — 16 smokejumpers including a foreman — onto a DC-3 and flew the 120 miles east. The wind over the site was so strong and turbulent that one of the jumpers got sick and stayed on board. The other 15 dropped into the back of Mann Gulch at 4pm.

This is the front of Mann Gulch. There hasn’t been a lot of regrowth since 1949 except for the grass. But the fire never made it to the river itself, so the first 100 yards or so is densely overgrown. This was where I saw the only mammal I encountered — a chipmunk that didn’t want to see whatever was going to happen to me.

Yeah, no way there’s snakes in there. Nope.

They collected their gear for about an hour while foreman Wagner Dodge met up with Jim Harrison. Harrison had seen them jump and came to join them after fighting the fire alone for nearly four hours. Now 16 strong again, Dodge ordered them to sidehill on the north side (that is, walk parallel to the bottom of the gulch about halfway up the slope). They would head to the Missouri River on the north side, then attack the fire up the south slope. It was about 5:40pm.

Sidehilling sucks, I’ll tell you that.

Here is a picture of the south slope. Something about the trees here, like maybe how they are burned and dead, makes me think this might have been the path of the fire downslope before the blowup.

I did the same thing with a weedwhacker once. Never use airplane fuel in those.

But Mann Gulch bends to the north as you move up the gulch and away from the river. As they set out, the smokejumpers could not see the fire or the river at all because of the bend.

From that point on, the burned husks of trees are common, but only on the north side. Some are still standing, some have fallen over, and a few appear to have exploded where they stood from the superheated sap.

Can’t lie. These tree bones get spooky.

Dodge saw the smoke building ahead of them, and he and Harrison moved a little ahead of the group. As they cleared the bend, they saw the fire had blown up, raced down the south slope, and jumped to the north slope. There was now a wall of flame roaring through waist-high dried grass towards the unknowing smokejumpers.Dodge turned the team around and angled them upslope towards the rimrock. This was about 5:45pm.

I have never been this deep into any sort of wilderness and found it as quiet as it is here. No insects, no birds. No suspicious rattling, happily enough. I was already feeling contemplative just walking in here, but this perfect silence makes it nearly Zen. I feel like a clumsy oaf with every step that crunches a branch or kicks a rock.

This picture is not far from the turnaround point. Notice on the left that you can’t see the south-side track of burned trees from here. Or the river.

Climbing to this point showed me that rain in the Gulch might be a net good, but the mud can be sort of treacherous. I did take only pictures, but I left a couple of buttprints to go along with the footprints. But it’s not like slipping while you’re 1,000 feet up a notoriously steep slope is scary.

The slope was too steep for the men to run very fast, but the incline helped the fire move faster. At about 5:55pm, Dodge stopped to light what would become known as an escape fire — he lit the grass at his feet to burn the available fuel before the main fire arrived, which would force the fire to part around the burned area like opening a curtain. This was a technique that had been theorized but never put into practice, and Dodge had never heard the theory anyway. None of his team understood what was he was doing, so ran on. Dodge lay down in the ashes alone.

The rim doesn’t look like that big a deal from this picture, but in person it’s a little rough. I may have been angling the camera up too. Add in a fair amount of smoke and a fire coming at you at roughly 7.5mph and things get a bit chaotic.

Two men, Walter Rumsey and Bob Sallee, made it to the rimrock and found a narrow passage through. At 6pm, the fire rolled over the other 13 smokejumpers, killing 11 immediately and leaving two to die in the hospital the next morning.

After the fire, they erected crosses to mark where each man was found. Over the years, those original crosses had degraded and begun to fall apart. And one of the men was Jewish anyhow. Recently, they erected marble markers alongside the crumbling crosses.

Dodge stood up from his escape fire and eventually met up with Rumsey and Sallee. When help arrived, they stayed the night carrying bodies out of the gulch.

Dodge died five years later of Hodgkin’s Disease, still haunted by the fire.

Walter Rumsey died in a plane crash in 1980. He was fifty years old.

Bob Sallee died in 2014 at the age of 82. The last survivor of the fire had been reluctant to talk about it often, but would occasionally give speeches about fire safety.

I’ve read a lot about Mann Gulch. I recommend Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean, but there are other books and even technical papers about fire behavior, which look at Mann Gulch from wind speeds, fuel availability, etc. Dodge’s escape fire soon became a standard technique in training.

And there are some good songs — like this one, told from Dodge’s perspective as a confessional as he lay dying from Hodgkin’s.

But all those books and papers and songs and articles never mention how beautiful the place is. It may be hard to notice when you’re standing next to a cross for a 19 year old. But if you can turn that off, it’s an astounding area.

Thank you for indulging me with this. I wish I could do it justice.

Tomorrow: Off to Missoula to put a cap on the Mann Gulch saga. Then we learn about the testicle festival. Really.